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County presses utilities and reviews radio interoperability as part of resilience talks
Summary
Supervisors asked staff to send a letter to Southern California Edison raising outage and communication concerns, and staff updated the board on CRIS radio testing and interoperability issues (P25 trunking and encrypted channels) that may affect federal partners and public scanner monitoring.
The Mono County Board of Supervisors instructed staff to finalize and send a letter to corporate leadership at Southern California Edison (SCE) after a Feb. 10 presentation laying out the county’s concerns about the 2025 holiday power outages and ongoing reliability and communication shortfalls.
CAO Moberly said the draft letter compiles concerns expressed by supervisors and members of the public and that staff would finalize and send the letter promptly. Supervisors recommended addressing the letter to senior SCE executives, copying state and federal elected officials and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and inviting SCE leadership to a board meeting to discuss actions and communication improvements.
On public‑safety communications, Kirk (county staff) briefed the board on the California Radio Interoperable System (CRIS). He said the county prefers a CRIS repeater site at dispatch (the jail/dispatch site) for resiliency, though Cal OES has not yet accepted that option; the jail project includes a bidirectional amplifier as a secondary measure. Kirk said the county will perform one month of drive testing (equipment rented and due back March 12) to document baseline coverage across highways, communities and seasonal locations such as campgrounds.
Board members raised interoperability concerns: CRIS uses P25 Phase 2 trunking and two channels will be encrypted; conventional analog VHF scanners cannot decode trunked P25 Phase 2 traffic without upgraded equipment. Kirk suggested passive pagers and P25‑capable radios as mitigation, and said the county is discussing secondary subscription options with partner agencies. Supervisors called for advance coordination with federal partners (Forest Service, BLM, Fish and Wildlife) and for planning to ensure partner agencies can still monitor county radio traffic during the transition.
The board approved the staff motion to send the SCE letter with suggested edits by voice vote.
